NEWSMAX: Tobacco companies defeated a U.S. law forcing cigarette packaging and advertisements to display images such as diseased lungs, persuading a federal appeals court that the requirements violate their free speech rights.
In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington today ruled that Food and Drug Administration regulations mandating visual-image warnings of smoking’s health risks, along with the telephone number 1-800-QUIT-NOW, are “unabashed attempts to evoke emotion” and “browbeat consumers” to stop buying the companies’ products.
“These inflammatory images and the provocatively named hotline cannot rationally be viewed as pure attempts to convey information to consumers,” U.S. Circuit Judge Janice Rogers Brown wrote in her majority opinion… (more)
